Immersion

Dense Blazing Star/Dense Gayfeather, Liatris spicata

Last weekend was my much-awaited return to Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area, a date marked with exuberance on my calendar of summer events by colorful rings and several stars. Last year I had attended a workshop there for the first time, not as an Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist (OCVN) for whom these weekends are designed to offer advanced training, but just as an extra—someone interested in an opportunity to explore a wonderful wildlife area and learn from the experts about it.
Since last year’s visit, having had such a great experience I investigated the OCVN program, “a research-based scientific training program that emphasizes hands on natural resource education coupled with community-based volunteer service,” enrolled in classes and completed the coursework. In a sense, this return brought me back to where it all began.
Why a second look?
Because a prairie is a place you must feel to understand.

Pinnate Prairie Coneflower, Ratibida pinnata

Defined by Webster, a prairie is “land in or predominantly in grass.” And for most of my life, the only image I knew of a prairie was the rolling field of swaying grass and waving wildflowers that Laura Ingalls, her hair in 2 long braids, bounded through as a young pioneer heroine on Wednesday night TV. Typically treeless, prairies are often primarily composed of grasses—native prairie grasses that often tower 4 feet or more such as Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Switch Grass or Prairie Cord Grass.
And, just as the land itself can range from wet to dry, providing a dark rich loam or the challenge of leached sand flats, each is distinguished by unique prairie wildflowers that bloom wildly in profusions of color, thriving in, what to many would be, inhospitable ground.
But, the definition of a prairie is almost incomplete without the mention of time—they’re our most native landform, expanding with the retreat of the glaciers and remaining for thousands of years until European settlement.
While most of the original million plus acres of prairie in the Midwest have been claimed for agriculture and tilled until only a small fraction remains, a remnant can be found at Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area in north central Ohio.

Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea

For 2 days, our group of 40, led by instructors David Brandenburg (botany), Jim Davidson (butterflies), George Keeney (beetles), and Bob Placier (birds) spent mornings in the classroom and afternoons walking the fields of Killdeer Plains. With spotting scopes in tow and hand lenses dangling from our necks, we dove into the flora and fauna of this tallgrass prairie habitat.
It was immersion—from dawn until dark.

Prairie Dock, Silphium terebinthinaceum

Bald eagles soared above our heads while we peered into the corollas of the tiniest flowers of a mountain mint resting in the palms of our hands. We tasted the tasty flowers and rubbed our hands against the roughness of prairie dock. We hopped in and out of vehicles as we laced our way along the narrow dusty roads, stopping to stoop at carcasses where carrion beetles performed the thankless task of decomposer.

Pipevine Swallowtail, Battus Philenor

In the bright sunshine, Pipevine swallowtails flashed us with iridescent blue against a field of early goldenrod while Halloween pennant dragonflies adorned the tops of every teasel.

Halloween Pennant, Celithemis eponina

By dark, the sounds of the night took over.
Where the rhythmic drones of scissor-grinder cicadas had filled the heated hours of daylight, nighttime resounded with the trills and scrapes and buzzes and ticks of countless katydids.
Jim McCormac led a night hike and we waded through the brush searching with our flashlights for the leafy green singers whose songs he played as they called to us at eye level from within dense tall stands of prairie cord grass. Night brought a heavy dew, and by morning the misty web-covered field lay quiet.

Misty Morning

A prairie is more than a shrinking shape on a map, its makeup more than a list of hardy, drought-tolerant, fire-resistant plants.
It is heat and sound,
tenderness and strength,
woven into a colorful tapestry that is rolled out beneath a wide sky.
To understand a prairie you must walk within one.

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Making Exceptions

Prairie blooms of Killdeer Plains

It brought a chuckle from the listeners—
a small group gathered for a workshop at Killdeer Plains, where experts in the field shared their knowledge of birds, plants, dragonflies and butterflies.

The basic rules to remember
to distinguish moths from butterflies,
when you stumble upon them in the field:

Moths usually fly at night; except when they don’t,
and usually have feathery antennae; except when they don’t,
and tend to rest with their wings held flat; except when they don’t,
and are of duller, drabber color; except when they’re not.

But within that lesson, a greater truth--
that the one who makes the rules, may break them.
Exceptions become the rule.

pink morph Bush Katydid,
Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area, north central Ohio,
7/19/09

Katydid (from Encyclopedia Britannica)
"Any of numerous, predominantly nocturnal insects related to crickets and grasshoppers, noted for their loud mating calls. Katydids have large hind legs and are distinguished by their extremely long, threadlike antennae and the thick, upwardly curved ovipositor (egg-laying structure) of the females.
Often large and green," ...(except when they're not!)... "many katydids have long wings, but some common species are nearly wingless. Katydids are most abundant in the tropics—the Amazon rainforest is home to about 2,000 species—but katydids are also found in cooler and drier regions throughout the world; the United States is home to over 100 species."

Dr. David Horn of The Ohio State University Department of Entomology led a session about butterflies and moths for the Killdeer Plains workshop. It was followed by afternoon field trips for butterflies and a nighttime hike to see moths.
The pink katydid was discovered by Jan Kennedy, a participant, on Saturday, July 18, at Killdeer Plains.
More about its discovery at Jim McCormac's site here.
And the great moth display here!

At the Edge of an Ocean (SWF)

The fields surrounding Killdeer Plains are striking.
Freshly cut of their wheat crop, and carried away as golden bales of straw, this yawning space devoid of hills or homes, becomes a stage upon which dramatic skies dance.

And, as one from the more rolling and wooded corner of the state, I found it hard to not always be standing, looking up in admiration, as if I’d never seen these same clouds pass, just 3 hours south, though I know it must be so.

The ocean above,

greater than one of water,
I play at the edge.

Cutleaf teasel, Dipsacus laciniatus

Cutleaf teasel, Dipsacus laciniatus, is a larger cousin to the purple-flowered, common teasel, Dipsacus fullonum, of my fields, and lines the roadways here. Both invasive non-natives, the cutleaf's white flower heads stand taller and its fancier leaves spread broadly at the base and adorn a reddish stem.

Sturdy and up to 7 feet tall, a bird has nested in this one.

See more Skywatch here.

This American Dream

American Dream

We have lost much of what was America—
the prominent tallgrass prairies of our Midwest, the natural look of this land.

Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea

Where, within open spaces dominated by the towering seedheads of big bluestem, Indiangrass and switchgrass, wildflowers on leggy stems emerged from between the broad, toothed leaves of prairie dock. Fields were sprinkled with shades of lavender in spreading stands of wild bergamot. Blankets of purple coneflower, rested beneath reaching rods of blazingstar.
And a lovely, wild lily was found here--
head nodding from a tall, slender stem.

Sullivant's Milkweed, Asclepias sullivantii

Wild Burgamot, Monarda fistulosa

Michigan Lily, Lilium michiganense

Onto fertile, black earth, the steel plow arrived, to turn and till these plains—
plant crops for a growing nation.
Until today, only fragments remain.
Of those hardy prairie plants, tough enough to withstand the droughts claiming others less well-rooted, the fires necessary for their survival.
Once covering more than a million acres, the wild beauties of Ohio’s Tallgrass have become a sight you, now, must search to see.

Trumpeter Swans and cygnets on lake

Past a small, yellow farmhouse and its neighboring cell tower straddling dense, deep rows of green corn, is Killdeer Plains, a remnant of the Sandusky Plains Prairie of long ago.
Its gravel roads and gated paths signify its place now—
a space set aside from the others.
Tucked between fields of winter wheat,
preserved and protected from change.

Purple Coneflower and Blazingstar, Liatris sp.

From across this wide sky, where clouds are stacked upon the horizon waiting for the full light of day, an eagle crosses before me. And takes his place in the dead tree on this prairie which now is his home.
If we could do things differently, would we--
redefine the American dream?

Bald Eagle over Killdeer Plains

View more ABC Wednesdays here!